From Clive about 4 hours ago on facebook in regards to The Scarlet Gospels.

"A lot of you ask about the status of The Scarlet Gospels. Firstly,thank you for caring. Several portions of the book are written and the scale of the narrative is massive.This is without doubt the most metaphysically ambitious book of mine since Imajica. But unlike Imajica,which offered an entirely new cast of characters,The Scarlet Gospels builds its narrative around Harry D'Amour and the Hellraiser mythology.Unlike Mister King,who has found brilliant ways to connect his different worlds so that we come to understand that each is an echo or reflection of the rest,I have no such grand ambition in mind.I simply want to tell an apocalyptic tale in which Harry will meet the forces of Hell as they appear in The Hellbound Heart and the first Hellraiser movie.
Since I became so unwell earlier this year I am trying to be a little kinder to myself.That means that I can't tell you exactly when the book will be finished,only that it will be.My love and heartfelt thanks for all the concern you've shown for my well being.Over and over again I've been gently advised to get well first,then worry about which story will be told when I've finished the fifth and final Abarat book.I hope this was useful.Now I head back Abarat,where Christmas Day has just dawned...."

The only other book he's written is The Hellbound Heart, which the first movie (the only movie he scripted and directed) is based on. Aside from that, he writes for an ongoing comic which began in 2011 and is published by Boom Studios.

sorry to say , i was a youngster when Cabal was butchered on Screen and then briefly ressurected as a comic series . i didnt read it until 5 years ago and was very amazing . really wish they made it the way it was written tho it would be pure justice. HAVE abarat 1 , have yet to open it (first edition) and the TORTURED SOULS (toyline series 1) which incidentally included a story about the 6 characters in each figure.

love the TS story, love Cabal , so i know ill fall in love with the Abarat legacy.

anyone else have the TS figures ? or the spawn Clive barker series ?

I used to love Nightbreed until i read Cabal & realised just how bad the film was!
Think Weaveworld is my favourite book, though i admit i've only read 4 or 5 of his books.

The awards will be presented in New Orleans at the Bram Stoker Awards/World Horror Con on the 15th June 2013.

Clive responded as follows:
"The timing of this award is entirely unexpected. It has been a difficult year personally and I am very honored by this and I accept it with great gratitude. It's a lovely thing to get and I'm incredibly moved. Truly. I look back over the list of past winners - Ray Bradbury, Vincent Price, Harlan Ellison, Steve King - and see that I am in unparalleled company, so I'm doubly honored by that. From the bottom of my heart, I thank the Horror Writers Association."

God coming back to Earth is one thing. God coming back to Earth as imagined by Clive Barker? Uh-oh.

Launching in May from Boom! Studios, New Genesis is the first original comic created and written by the horror master. Featuring art by Haemi Jang (Hellraiser: The Road Below), the 12-part series is the Old Testament of the Bible in present day, "if God were to come back and tell you how we all got it wrong and what everything really meant," says co-writer Mark Miller.

"We're making something that is a radical re-reading of ancient structures. It does have the word Genesis in the title, after all. That should be a dead giveaway," adds Barker, who brought his Hellraiser franchise to Boom! two years ago. "I love the idea of stories being about great beginnings and terrible endings."

Miller and Barker began their own friendship through art. Barker paints models and photographs them in various landscapes, and for one project he painted Miller in a multi-colored tribal look with various earth-tone paints.

Looking at what he did, the two started to think about the guy they were looking at, wondering about what he'd be like if he were God and the devil all rolled up into one way-out-there package.

Thus Wick was born.

In New Genesis, Julian Demond is a captain of industry who believes he is on a mission to actually discover God, and in the wasteland finds Wick, fostering a relationship with this strange man who claims he is actually the Big Man Upstairs and appears to be just as omnipotent.

"He's sort of going back to Earth and seeing everything for the first time, so he's having all these new experiences," says Matt Gagnon, editor in chief at Boom! "What's really interesting about his story is how the world reacts to his judgment and seeing the world through his eyes."

"New Genesis" is filled with dark fantasy, horror and "all the terrible things that happened in the original Genesis," says co-writer Mark Miller.(Photo: Boom! Studios)
This is a Barker story, though, so those experiences are laced with elements of dark fantasy and horror and "filled with all the terrible things that happened in the original Genesis," Miller says.

The protagonists of the story are Julian's son Tristan and his fiancée, Elspeth. They embark on their own road trip to stop Wick and reconnect with Julian. This strange religious journey of Julian's is very weird for Tristan "because his father has never been a spiritual man," Miller says. "Only in this new phase of his life does he feel the call to leave his mark upon the world, in a much stronger fashion than he already has."

While much of the story is supernatural in nature with what's happening with Wick and the places he's going and things he's seeing, New Genesis is also very grounded, Gagnon says. "The places the characters are traveling to are real, so the fun of it is seeing those places explored through Wick's POV, whether that's San Francisco or Rome," he says.

"That's one of the things about Clive's writing, he likes to keep things timeless," Miller adds, "so he has included these real-life places that are part of our consciousness and understanding the world. And then he burns them to the ground."

I remember the first time I ever saw Hellraiser, thinking it was the most visually jarring thing I'd ever seen. (Especially the scene where Frank first rises from the attic floor, a scene which still stands up pretty well over the test of time as well.)

New Genesis sounds interesting; I will be picking it up, when it is released. Last night, I rewatched 'The Midnight Meat Train' and was as pleased with it as I was when I first saw it. I am looking forward to the end of the semester, as I have been wanting to reread the Barker books in my library before work starts.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Aaron

"I've known since I first took over the series that I wanted to eventually have someone else pick up the hammer," says the writer. "It's kind of a time-honored Thor tradition at this point, isn't it? Going back to the days of Beta Ray Bill."

Barker is my favorite author and a true inspiration. Shame the majority of his social network accounts are being run by a boy toy/apprentice of his who puts words in Clive's mouth and never stops bragging about his relationship with Barker. Sounds harsh I know but I had to delete Barker's official page from my "likes" on Facebook it was getting so obnoxious. Oh well. Long live Clive.

SCARLET GOSPELS is in large part written, but I can't find the six months it will take to complete it until I have finished with ABARAT. It is a complex book, interweaving many lives , many journeys. The most controversial of those journeys will take us back to Bethlehem, on the night of the Nativity. No Biblical Testament dares recount what really happened on that night. That task falls to THE SCARLET GOSPELS.

Barker's Books of Blood has been a huge inspiration on my own writing. Lately, he hasn't looked so great (I hear rumors that he's sick, possibly AIDS, and I seriously hope they're false). His work often merges the thrills of pop horror with the depth of intelligent literary fiction--similar to what Philip K. Dick did with Sci-Fi, yet entirely unique at the same time). I hope he's doing well, and that he finally releases that short story collection he's been working on for so long.

Clive announced on his Facebook page that The Scarlet Gospels is completed and that he's delivered the manuscript to his agent. Unfortunately, he has no idea when it will be released and that usually it takes no less than a year from delivery to street date.

"I have changed the title of the fourth Abarat book. It is to be called ABARAT IV: KRY RISING."
Facebook Updates
By Clive Barker, 4 October 2013
"I've got here the tiniest taste of the next ABARAT book, KRY RISING. The poem is a kind of magical invocation, offered to the force behind all Abaratian magic, The Preyer Kry.
Come away, come away,
Where there is a ladder of gold
'twixt earth and sky.

Come night, come day,
There our dreams will never grow old;
Nor will we die.

Only come away!
In the name of love,
Away!

I think it's best spoken aloud. My love to you all, Clive."
Facebook Updates
By Clive Barker, 4 October 2013

__________________China Mieville: 'My job is not to try to give readers what they want but to try to make readers want what I give

"Just a quick update on The Scarlet Gospels. My editor has supplied me with his insights, which are smart and will be incorporated into my final pass before I turn it over to my publishers once and for all. I don't have a definite pub[lication] date yet but I promise that as soon as I do, which won't be very long, it will be right here, for you."
Facebook Posts
By Clive Barker, 17 January 2014

__________________China Mieville: 'My job is not to try to give readers what they want but to try to make readers want what I give